## Facts

- Roderick Campbell was an at-will, full-time salaried employee of General Dynamics Government Systems Corporation beginning June 6, 2000.
- On April 30, 2001, the company sent a mass email announcing a new four-step dispute resolution policy culminating in arbitration.
- The email included a general message from the company president about communication and resolving employee issues, and it asked employees to review materials via embedded links.
- The full policy text, including a mandatory arbitration requirement covering employment discrimination claims (including ADA claims), appeared only in linked documents (a brochure and a handbook), not in the email body.
- The brochure stated that continued employment after the effective date would constitute agreement and that the policy would be the exclusive means of resolving covered disputes.
- The company tracked that Campbell opened the email but did not track whether he opened the links or read the policy documents.
- On December 30, 2002, the company terminated Campbell for persistent absenteeism and tardiness.
- Campbell alleged his attendance issues resulted from sleep apnea and claimed disability discrimination and failure to accommodate under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

## Issues

1. Whether the Federal Arbitration Act authorized interlocutory appellate review of an order striking an employer’s arbitration-based affirmative defense.
2. Whether a company-wide email, without an acknowledgment requirement and with key waiver terms contained only in embedded links, provided minimally sufficient notice to bind an employee to arbitrate and waive a judicial forum for ADA claims.

## Decision

- The First Circuit dismissed for lack of appellate jurisdiction the employer’s appeal from the portion of the order striking the arbitration-based affirmative defense.
- The First Circuit affirmed the denial of the motion to stay the case and compel arbitration.
- The court held the email distribution method did not provide minimally sufficient notice of (i) the contractual nature of the policy and (ii) the waiver of access to a judicial forum for statutory discrimination claims.

## Legal Principles

- Under the FAA, interlocutory appellate jurisdiction extends to specified orders concerning arbitration (including denial of motions to compel arbitration), but does not extend to independent interlocutory rulings such as striking an affirmative defense.
- Employment arbitration agreements may cover statutory discrimination claims, but enforcement depends on formation and assent principles requiring adequate notice of a binding waiver of the right to sue in court.
- When an employer communicates purportedly binding arbitration terms through a nontraditional medium such as a mass email, notice of arbitration and waiver must be clear and reasonably conspicuous.
- An email that does not prominently disclose arbitration and waiver in the message body, requires employees to locate key terms in linked documents, and requires no affirmative acknowledgment may fail to establish assent through continued employment.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit held it lacked FAA jurisdiction to review the order striking the arbitration-based affirmative defense and affirmed the denial of a stay and motion to compel arbitration because the employer’s mass email announcement, with waiver terms available only through links and no acknowledgment mechanism, did not give employees sufficient notice to support a knowing contractual waiver of a judicial forum for ADA claims.


Campbell v. Gen. Dynamics Gov't Sys. Corp., 407 F.3d 546 (1st Cir. 2005)